California's finances are balanced and stable for the first time in years, Gov. Jerry Brown wants you to know. Now he's moving on to legacy building with challenges that include high-speed rail, a delta water project and an overhaul of environmental laws and school funding.

The state has "confounded its critics" by repairing its finances, a sign that greater things lie ahead, Brown declared in Thursday's State of the State address. He warned fellow Democrats, who hold a supermajority in the Legislature, not to test him with new spending that would unhinge his prized budget, a reminder he has issued repeatedly in past weeks.

Then he ticked off his own controversy-laden shopping list of mega-projects, which bore a passing resemblance to those of his father, a two-term governor in the 1960s credited with building water and university systems that reshaped California life.

Brown wants a giant plumbing system of twin tubes to shunt water around the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, source of much of the state's water. He wants firmer financing for higher education and school aid redirected to poor districts.

He's also standing by the high-speed rail project, which will break ground this year on a 114-mile stretch in the Central Valley while full-scale financing remains in doubt. He's also ready to take on a rewrite of the California Environmental Quality Act, which has drawn fire from business as obstructionist and antigrowth. Brown, however, said nothing about reforming state pensions, a cause he'd launched two years ago.

But the literary Brown is also a seasoned pol who, in delivering his 11th State of the State, reminded listeners of his winning gamble in persuading voters to approve a tax increase and his pledge to hold the line on fresh spending: "Fiscal discipline is not the enemy of our good intentions, but the basis for realizing them."

Brown's stature has never loomed larger. He has laid out a worthwhile but classic-Brown iconoclastic wish list that blends his big ideas with a pledge of frugality on everything else.